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Published: March 19th 2008
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Entrance to Cave 1
On inner tubes, we floated thru each of the 5 caves. Back to the Mainland
A great idea John and Joan had was to take a trip inland and visit Tikal, in Guatemala. Along the way we could make a stop-over in the city of San Ignacio, located just a few miles from the border with Guatemala. There are lots of eco tourism options in San Ignacio and it’s at the halfway point to Tikal (one of the largest Mayan ruins discovered). Sounded great to us and since there were 4 of us, it made more sense to rent a car; making our lives a lot easier. Our road trip began by taking the water taxi in to Belize City where the car rental agency picked us up at the terminal. We rented from Crystal Auto Rental and everyone there was great. Once at the main office, it took what seemed like forever for the guys to do the paperwork so Joan and I spent the time wandering through their flea market type building and watching the parakeets in their aviary. Joan saved a life that day…. She saw one of the baby parakeets had fallen into the big water bowl and was drowning. We didn’t know how to do CPR
To the Bat Cave!
A few local residents just hanging around. on a bird so we called the owner who fished it out. (On our return trip we were told it had a full recovery. YEAH JOAN!!!!) In the meantime the guys were getting a full briefing from the car rental guy about DON’T STOP ON THE ROAD IN GUATEMALA FOR ANYTHING!!!! - plus giving them maps, directions and other instructions. Finally we were ready to hit the road. John volunteered to do all the driving which was great with us. We haven’t owned a car since 2005 and would like to keep it that way.
San Ignacio summarized
It was an easy 2 hour drive to San Ignacio and we stayed at a place called Midas Resort. Now remember you are in San Ignacio, not New York so the accommodations will not be same quality. You have to use a different rating scale adjusted to where ever you are and Belize is no different. Midas was a great place to stay and a bit rustic. On 7 acres carved out of the rain forest with a river in the back of the property. It’s a series of cabins on the ground and some on stilts. They are working
Macaw River
Runs thru all 5 caves. on renovating the cabins so if you stay here be sure and get one of the renovated cabins. Most of them have a/c (very important in this hot and humid place) but some of them have the old loud boxy window units and some have the nice quiet split units. The rooms we had were very clean, each with a private bathroom and a hammock on the porch. Most of the rooms are different so ask to see all their open rooms before you choose one. They also offer breakfast (not included) which I would not recommend. It’s more of a convenience thing. And beware… their coffee is pretty bad. It’s a short walk from town which is really a blessing due to there being several loud discos which blast music until about 3AM. We even heard the music echoing across the small valley between us and the town. I couldn’t imagine how noisy it would have been if we had stayed at Martha’s Guesthouse or some other place in town. If we go back we would stay at Midas again. Speaking of Martha’s, we had a great breakfast there one morning, but by far, the best place to eat
Thorny Tree
Can't remember the name, but the spikes and tree are full of red fire ants. in town is Hannahs. They raise and butcher all their own meats and much of their produce is organic. Every meal we had there was fantastic and Mike couldn’t have been happier (13 different lamb dishes). Each evening there is usually a group of people on the street waiting for a table at Hannahs; so best to get there before 7.
And interesting side note about San Ignacio is the Mennonite community. You don’t expect to see that outside of the USA. We would see their buggies on the road and some of the men selling their produce in town. Another tip is the best place to buy crafts is at the hand cranked ferry to the Xunantunich ruins (on the road to the Guatemala border). There are quite a few vendors set up there. The prices and the selection is much better than in town.
Floating thru the Caves
San Ignacio is a great location; there are ruins, jungle treks, horseback riding, river canoe/kayak. Mike and I spent part of a day on inner tubes, drifting down the Macaw river and winding through 5 limestone caves. We saw many fruit and insect bats (way up close
Exiting the Cave
Out of this cave and into the next. and personal) and some great limestone formations. The Cave Branch section of the river is very slow so you don’t need to be in great physical shape to handle this one. It’s recommended to have a guide and Midas Resort set us up with a nice one. Just remember, when the guide tells you “BUTT UP” he means get your butt up or you might be scraping your privates on the river rocks. YIKES! On the hike to the river we walked through the rain forest with the guide pointing out interesting food and medicinal plants and insects along the way. Did I say insects? Yep! Termites taste kind of minty. Not bad at all and high in protein, but it takes a lot to make a meal. The walk to the drop-in point in the river was a 45 minute walk through the jungle/rain forest. An easy walk, but given the heat and humidity, we sure were happy to see that cool, clear water. A great time and highly recommended.
A very Buggy night
An outing that really appealed to me was the nighttime rainforest walk. A local resort (Windy Place) has a walk through their grounds
Cave Tubing
Us floating along in between caves. which sounds kind of tame but at night everything looks different and a bit more dangerous. John and Joan tend to turn in early so only Mike and I went. Mike is a walking feast for flying insects so the fact that he went with me I consider a sacrifice for him. They came to pick us up after dark and once we arrived at the resort I discovered we were the only ones for the tour. Score! Our guide/nature guy was Jorge “but my friends call me Lion”. The fact that he was tall, dark and great looking didn’t hurt all (too bad it was dark). He fitted us out with headlamps and off we went. The first thing he called to our attention was the hundreds, no thousands of little eyes flashing at us from grass. These turned out to be wolf spiders and they were everywhere! If I had known I was walking among that many spiders in the grass I would have been much more cautious. The spiders ranged in size from a dime to bigger than a silver dollar and the big ones you could actually hear hopping around crushing the leaves as they went.
Cooling down at the end
After 3 hours of floating thru caves, it was time for a dip. We didn’t see anything really noteworthy; a few sleeping birds, frogs (a huge bullfrog) things like that. Our headlamps attracted a multitude of insects which in turn rang the dinner bell for the insect bats. The bats were constantly swooping to within inches of our face (that was pretty cool). You could hear the flutter of their wings and feel them zip past you. The walk, although not very exciting, was interesting and worth going.
After 2 days in San Ignacio we drove across the border into Guatemala and the amazing ruins of Tikal. But that’s for the next blog.
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How cool is THAT?!
Ow, cave tubing looks AWESOME! I would love to try that some day! Was is mostly smooth sailing or were there some rough spots?